


"What You Wish For"

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4758572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ancient artifacts, Jack's gene, Season 8... what could go wrong?</p><p>Written for Riverfox for the 2015 Jack/Daniel Ficathon on Dreamwidth</p>
            </blockquote>





	"What You Wish For"

The bars of the cell were maybe five inches apart, and it was perfectly circular, like a birdcage. The bars had slammed downward into place from the ceiling as soon as Jack stepped across the alabaster circle inlaid in the middle of the hallway, incidentally making the circle light up like something from Atlantis.  
  
"Oh, crap," Jack said, at the same time Daniel, four paces behind him and, mercifully, outside the cage, said something similar.

Maybe they had gotten a wee bit too cavalier about the things Jack had managed to light up so far, with his badass Ancient self, in this ruin that Daniel was convinced had been a joint project of the Furlings and the Ancients. They'd left Teal'c and Carter happily decoding what looked like the main power supply, and headed off into one of the corridors to see what they could see.

It had been a nice day outside; cloudy, not too hot, no trees, great chance for Jack to come offworld with his old team, seemed like a milk run, and now this.

Daniel, wandering in spirals just behind Jack in order to catch it all on video, had been happily burbling on about the purpose of the place, which Jack gathered was something between Coney Island and the Goa'uld pleasure palace where they'd all been trapped a few years ago. For this trip Daniel was even wearing a bandana, for heaven's sake. Which was always, for a decade at least, a signal that Daniel expected no enemies and full archeology.

When Jack got trapped and the initial burst of expletives had been expended, Daniel turned off the recorder and trained his big flashlight on the inscriptions on the nearest walls. Less burbling and more urgent muttering. Jack paced his prison, looking at the floor, and the bars. Metal that looked and felt like iron. Smooth, cold, unbendable.

Crap indeed.

After Daniel came up with the idea, based on his perusal of the walls, that the cage was about making the prisoner give up his or her "one greatest wish," Jack pushed his bad memories of the za-tarc detector as far from the front of his mind as he possibly could and started thinking about things he really wanted.

Really. Wanted. For real. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten. And gritted his teeth.

"Daniel," he said, trying for patient but probably failing, "I am thinking as hard as I goddamn can about retirement, a golden Lab, the beach at the cabin, golden sunlight, a nice newly tied fly on my fly rod, early morning, the mist coming up off the pond, a Thermos of hazelnut coffee, that old skiff my grandpa rescued and repainted, am I making myself clear!"

"You are, you are, and all I can tell you is that nothing is happening and the instructions are as clear as they can be; there's no symbolism here, no metaphor, no weird turns of phrase, and whatever you are telling yourself on the top level of your mind, that's not it. That's not your greatest wish."

"Daniel!"

"I'm sorry, Jack. It's got to be something else. Think of something else."

"Daniel," Jack said more softly. Daniel had to know what that meant. It was a plea. _Not that,_ it meant.

"I'm sorry," Daniel repeated. Which meant Daniel knew. Of course. Daniel knew everything. Almost.

"Don't make me do this," Jack gritted out.

"I'm not recording. I'll close my eyes. If it works, the inscriptions say something about showing you your wish, and it's all very humorous about how you will be released to continue your funhouse exploring."

"Does this remind you of something?" Jack gripped the bars. He was buying time, nothing more.

"Well, yes," Daniel said, sounded extremely distracted. Jack opened his eyes. Daniel indeed had his back turned and was brushing his fingertips across Ancient inscriptions, lit by the flashlight in his other hand. The light was a big heavy one, like police carried back home -- one part flashlight, one part weapon. "It reminds me of the Tok'ra memory device, and also a little of the za-tarc detector, but it all seems to be in the service more of a fun, and for them, harmless game -- show the people you're with what you really want, and the game's over and on with the next show. It's really an amusement palace, Jack, I'm sure of it, but it's fascinating how the joint project of the two peoples -- anyway. Yeah. I won't look. My eyes are closed."

Jesus, if what Jack thought of would appear on those smooth walls, like movie screens, interspersed with the inscriptions... the same alabaster-looking stuff was in the stripe that marked the circumference of his prison -- and to think he was always telling Daniel not to touch things.

Stalling.

"Okay," Jack said, and quit stalling and took a deep breath and thought of what he tried not to think of, what had become a habit not to think of all these years -- Charlie, well and whole, Charlie in his imagination, riding his bike, batting, running, maybe driving a car, maybe bringing home a girl for him and Sara to meet. Charlie, playing catch, hitting a ball off a tee, hitting the soft pitches the coach tossed him and so, so excited about his very first game of kid-pitch baseball -- his best friend Jared was going to be the first starting pitcher in their very first real game, they'd practiced it.

Jack stayed with it -- stayed with that weekend, that weekend in early spring, before it was really warm enough to even think about baseball, in his opinion, but they'd signed up for the league and had the first practice or two and Charlie loved it. He loved it so much.

"Jack," Daniel said, quietly. Jack opened his eyes. He was standing in the same spot, facing Daniel, gripping two of the bars of his cage so hard his knuckles were white. Daniel was facing away from him.

Jack let go of the bars and stepped back. He swiped the back of his hand over his wet cheek.

The smooth walls were white and cold and empty.

"If it wasn't that, what the fuck is it?" Jack shouted. He wiped his face again, using the other hand, then his sleeve. He stomped noisily around his perimeter.  
  
Still facing away from him, Daniel said haltingly, "Maybe it has to be something... something that is still actually possible."

Jack laughed bitterly. "Now you tell me."

Daniel turned around abruptly and came to him. Jack stopped where Daniel was. They faced each other, the bars between them.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry." Daniel's tones were measured, soft, full of regret. "I'm just flailing around here, trying to come up with something. A solution."

Jack found himself reaching through the bars and gripping Daniel's shoulder. The cell was so cold and Daniel's shoulder was warm and alive. "I know.... What about Carter taking apart the wall down here. Or even some C4."

"There's got to be a solution. No destruction necessary. I'm sure of it. Just like when Sam and I solved the puzzle in the Hall of Thor's Might on Cimmeria. We're so close, Jack." Daniel's hands fluttered up and around. " 'Your greatest wish.' So. It's got to be something possible, something that could happen. Something that you want, that you desire, that could really come true."

Jack took his hand away.

_Crap,_ he thought, again. "I can think of something else, but you really have to promise to close your eyes for this one."

"Of course," Daniel said sadly, and Jack frowned, but he didn't want to ask about that, what Daniel was reacting to, because he wanted mostly to get the hell on with it. Who knew it could come to this, but it made sense -- fucking Furlings or Ancients -- jaded, cynical, Tunnel of Love, messing with people's heads.

Yeah. This was probably it. Fucking Ancients. They could have their stupid gene. Even though he had saved Bra'tac with it once.  
  
"No peeking," Jack insisted, to Daniel's back, and he didn't wait for an answer. He clenched his fists against his closed eyes and went for it.

Daniel.

Daniel, that first mission from the SGC to Chulak, stumbling along the trail, telling Carter about Sha're.

Further back -- Daniel, arrogant and isolated, stranding them all on Abydos and then rescuing them with Sha're's help. Heroic Daniel, seeing Ska'ara's signal and risking -- everything.

Reckless, impetuous, arrogant Daniel. Crying in his arms on the floor of a storage room.

Taking his hand, letting Jack pull him up, when they were Jonah and Carlin beneath the ice of another alien world.

Laughing Daniel -- something all too rare, laughing at Teal'c in Jack's living room, the day they found out Hammond was leaving them.

Daniel, sipping coffee in Jack's kitchen. Sipping wine on his deck. Sipping alien mead, firelight licking at his face.

So far, it's real.

His heart's desire? His one greatest wish?

Back to the cabin, then -- Daniel in firelight, lying on the braided rug in front of the fire -- no, lying on the rug on a sleeping bag that Jack spread for just this purpose, lying on one hip as he presses close to Jack, searching his face as he leans down to kiss him.

Jack knew exactly how Daniel would look naked -- years of camping and of showering on base left him with nothing to wonder about there.

But taking what he knew and weaving a dream out of it -- that was something else. That was beyond anything allowed, anything legal. But he'd still wanted it. Wished for it, even though he really hadn't thought it was possible at all.

Daniel, still at the cabin -- all the happy things in Jack's life happened there -- Daniel waking up next to him in the old double bed in the ground floor bedroom -- the warm bedroom. Daniel, sleepy-eyed, putting a hand to his cheek, smiling at him. Daniel, looking at him with love, as Jack bent to him, kissed him good morning, the first morning of the rest of their lives.

A small clang, and at the whisper of metal against metal, Jack opened his eyes.

The cell was gone, retracted into the ceiling, and with a yelp he stepped quickly across the fading alabaster border to see his dreams painted in Technicolor across the walls of the hall.

"Shit," he said, and he was gripping Daniel's shoulder from behind and saying, "Don't open your eyes, don't open them."

The pictures were fading, fading, and Daniel was saying, "The cell, I heard a clang, it's gone, Jack, we did it.... Jack."

Maybe Jack had given in a little too much to his visions (something possible? Who was he kidding? Who were the fucking Ancients kidding? Possible? Him and Daniel? Jesus!) because all of a sudden he was hugging Daniel close, and pounding him on the back, burying his face in Daniel's shoulder like he'd done that one time years ago in the gateroom when Daniel had actually not died on the _hatak,_ lost beyond recall in deep space; no, his space monkey had made it back after all, more resourceful than Jack had given him credit for -- a mistake he had tried never to make again.

Daniel. Warm and real and in his arms. His one greatest wish. Not just a dream, not for now.

"Um," Daniel said, against his neck. Any minute now Jack would let go and they would return to the sunlit world outside and life would be back to normal. And they would never speak of this again and Jack would never have to admit what he'd thought about, to break the spell and open the prison bars.

"Um," Daniel said again and Jack raised his head and his eyebrows and looked at Daniel, who looked back, sheepishly.

"I may have peeked. Just a little," Daniel said.

And Jack laughed.

And then Daniel kissed him. And it was only Carter's check-in on the radio that brought them back to their senses.

"Labor Day's coming up," Jack said, whispering against Daniel's neck, which he knew the taste of now -- not what he imagined at all, but good. Salty and sour and most of all, real.

"Great time to be at the cabin," Daniel said.

"You know it," Jack said.

"Your greatest wish," Daniel breathed, squeezing his arms and then reluctantly letting go. "And mine."

"Something possible," Jack said, adjusting his cap where the kissing had dislodged it. "Who knew?" He reached for his radio. "We're coming to you, Carter. We've seen enough down here."

"Only because I peeked," Daniel said, smiling wickedly and folding his arms.

"Okay, then, well, I forgive you."

Daniel's smile lit up the room, and Jack turned to lead the way up, and out.

end


End file.
